New Forex Trading Strategy

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Know These Trading Secrets

By Ahmad Hassam

Trading is not investing. Trading is speculating. Trading can be challenging. Speculating is defined as taking business risk in the hope of profiting from market fluctuations. Successful speculating requires predicting outcomes and analyzing different market situations. It also requires putting your money on the side of the trade on which you think the market is going to go up or down.

If you are a trader, you should appreciate the fact that if you apply the correct techniques for analyzing trades, manage your money and protect your trading account, you can be wrong 70 percent of the time and still be a successful trader. How is that possible? It is only possible by entering a trade where the risk/reward ratio is les than1/3.

Over time, opportunity keeps on shifting from one market to another. For example, right now forex and gold markets are really hot while stocks are down. Gold prices are going up. Those who entered the trend by investing at the right time and are going to ride the trend till it lasts will make a lot of money in the gold markets. At the moment almost everyone is running and buying gold as a hedge against turmoil in the global markets. Everyone includes countries, institutional investors, hedge funds and retail investors.

Last year in 2008, oil prices had reached almost $140 per barrel in a matter of few months. Many hedge funds had made a lot of money by investing in crude oil futures in the year 2008. Then the bubble burst and oil prices came tumbling down to almost close to $35 per barrel. This situation may continue for some months or some years but suddenly you will find that crude oil futures have become a great investment opportunity again. Right now oil prices are down due to the reduced demand in the global markets.

Timing for entering the market and the timing for exiting the market is very important for a successful trade. In trading it is the timing that is of essence. As the global economy recovers and demand for oil increases, oil prices will again go up in a few years time.

Successful trading requires mastering a strategy that enables you to trade multiple markets and multiple time frames. A lot of people make the mistake of focusing only on one market. In reality all the markets are interlinked. If something happens in one market, you will find the repercussions in the other markets. Many people end up spending time on only one market.

Many traders get stuck up with one market. They want to master that market. They trade only one instrument. They do testing and development. They put on a million indicators. Then they go and trade live that instrument. While they do everything they can while spending all kinds of time trying to figure out one market and one timeframe. But then what almost happens is that the market starts to go sideways. The opportunity shifts to another market.

You really should have the ability to be able to adapt to different market conditions and not waste your time mastering one market. This is critical if you want to make a fortune in trading. You can start with one market but over the years add a few other markets as well. This will diversify your risk as well. For example, there were so many stocks just a few years ago that were incredible to trade that either dont exist anymore or would not trade successfully today. Stocks are no more a good investment. But if you want to trade stocks, you will have to wait for a few more years for the stock market to boom again.

Many gurus will teach you that you really need to learn the ins and outs of one market. They will tell you to focus only on one market and then stick with it. But the problem with that philosophy is that opportunity keeps on shifting from one market to another. Mastering different markets is counterintuitive. Always remember a good trader always follows where the money goes. In other words, follow where the opportunity goes. - 23305

About the Author:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



<< Home